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Nagarjuna Fertilizer’s urea import has brought back life to Cuddalore Port. This has created an direct employment for 2500 people and indirect employment for many more. According to The Hindu 5000 employees are involved in unloading the urea from ships into godowns at the port. The series of pictures below, and the video at end shows how urea from main ships, M.V. Bao Shun and M.V.Ziang An are brought to inner port using barges and then transported to the destination.

The barge in the picture above is used to unload the urea from ships. Though the capacity of the barge is 400 tonne, it is not loaded more than 300-350 tonnes at a time, because of the shallow water at the inner port (guess the dredging work is yet to be completed).

Excavators unload the urea from barge into trucks which are then transported to godowns.

Since, nearly 50,000 tonnes of urea is unloaded in a very short period of time, existing storage facility could not accommodate the entire bulk. The picture above shows how urea is stored in huge heaps inside the port campus.

Urea is then packed into sacks and loaded on to trucks which take them to the destination.

Trucks queuing up inside the port campus - waiting to be loaded.

Arrival of two ships at Cuddalore Port marks an important moment in the history of the town. Cuddalore Port at Cuddalore Old Town is a natural harbor, used for more than 400 years by European settlers. The port was developed by English early in the 20th century. Earlier it was used by EID(East India Distilleries) Parry. Later after independence it was developed into a general purpose port. In 1960’s and 70’s the port was one of the busiest port in India, but the activity slowed down there after, and came to a complete halt on early 90’s. Unavailability of cheap laborers and silt formation are considered to be the main reasons behind the fall of the port.

Cuddalore Port is now a minor port. Various proposals were made for the development of the port in the past decade. But none of them were implemented. Now the port is being deepened at the cost of Rs. 14.41 crores, with financial assistance from Asian Development Bank. Couple of weeks back two vessels carrying fertilizers arrived at the port. Once the desilting work is over, the facilities will be used in full capacity and would lead to the development of the region.

Ships as seen from Silver Beach

Related links:

Cargo vessel at Cuddalore port after 12 years - The Hindu

Renovation of Cuddalore, Nagapattinam ports will be completed by June - The Hindu

Port gets a new lease of life - The Hindu